Ge - :eral Hertzog and the Nationalists Gmeral Hertzog's resignation of the
party leadership after a stormy meeting of the Re-united Nationalist Party of the Free State at Bloemfontein closes a period of some fourteen months in which he was associated with Dr. Malan and the extreme Nationalists. At the beginning of the war, when he announced his policy of non-belligerence for South Africa, and resigned after his defeat in favour of General Smuts, he carried his group with him to form a joint Opposition with Dr. Malan. But he had little in common with him, and it was soon evident that the latter's supporters did not trust him. As recently as last June, after the fall of Paris, General Hertzog was still pressing for withdrawal from the war; but he had no liking for the ex- extrzme Republicanism of his new associates, still less for the racial antagonisms which Dr. MaIan's Afrikanerdom seemed bent on perpetuating, or its emphatic leaning towards the Nazis. Mr. Havenga and other personal followers of General Hertzog retire with him from a political alliance which from the first was uncomfortable, and it is significant that he has advised his friends to support General Smuts at a forthcoming by-election. What- ever his views about participation in the war, General Hertzog at least had no illusions about Hitler, and would probably sub- scribe to the words spoken by General Smuts last Saturday: "May God prevent that South Africa should receive its Re- public from the hands of the Germans and Hitler."
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